Angela Carter´s Puss in boots

Original tale by Hans Christian Andersen.(1805-75)

Angela Carter makes direct links with Comedia Dell´Arte (Italian comedy)

http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/colombina.html

Puss in boots would be a mixture of Scaramouche and Harlequino (more harlequino)

SCARAMOUCHE (Scaramuccia)- Spanish captain- puss is spanish and directs the inamorato.

     HARLEQUINO- Anthropomorphism is not a problem in fairy tales or pantomime. Ideal form then for this short story. Puss in boots is the agile, rascally inventive character, complemented well by narcissism, and representing the success of the "little man". Tremendous acrobatic agility- like cats; stealthy approach towards their objectives.

INNAMORATI (The Lovers) 

is the "beauty", conquered "princess" in the story by the young lover motivated by lust, passion, music,and love  but lacking common sense. ( A kind of Romeo but not tragic) The innamorati (the young officer) is helped by the witty harlequin (puss in boots). The young officer wants to make a married woman his- adultry, and will do anything to atchieve the goal- including killing her husband. Is Angela questioning men as naturally posessive and jealous?

COLOMBINA                                                    

The tabby cat is one of puss´s multiple lovers (domination of men) who plotted all the ideas for the plan (empowerment of women) and later has kittens with puss - fits into the canon of a colombina. Colombina is what the Innamorata is not: free, insolent, not slave of love bonds, sometimes brilliant, vane always, chatterer, gossiper, always prone to intrigue at somebody else's expenses. A sort of Harlequinin female clothes. 

Presentation of female characters:

 Although they may seem passive, manipulated and under men´s plans for conquer at first hand,"the belle" and the tabby cat participate actively murdering the husband to go with the lover. The tabby cat impulsed by the profits she may gain in the transition, in a stealthy, agile, intelligent manner helps the man atchieve their planned goal as wittingly and actively as a male harlequin such as puss in boots can, making Carter with such characterisation a direct call on the empowerment of women.

The tabby cat shows irony. She is one of the multiple lovers of puss seeming sexually used and possesed by a dominant, narcissistic male, but she has the power to return the same attitude and make herself into an equal. She has the idea for the machination, highlighting in some woman the innate capacity for creative directory responsabilities. Making out of the tabby cat something more than a simple "slutty" figure.

The inamoratti is a rather more romantic woman, more passive, fine and educated (princess like character) falling in love with the lover, in contrast to the colombina. Still this woman inamoratti escapes the traditional form of pure romance and participates too in the dirty, chain of corruption (adultry, killing husband, and furthermore, adjusting the money transactions post death of the husband victim). 

Narrator

This is the only tale narrated by a male character. His voice is exageratedly pompous, and containing narcissistic depictions of himself.